This winter the wedding invitations kept rolling in, serving as another one of those dated reminders of an impending deployment.

“Yet another wedding you won’t be able to go to” I say to my husband.

We have a fridge full of smiley, happy, in-love pictures and invites reminding me that I’m going solo to every one of them. Last deployment, it was three weddings. This year, it’s four.

Even though I had plenty of military friends at my first solo wedding last year, I still felt like I was wearing a big neon sign “I’m ALONE, here without my husband.” My friends were grabbing Instagram-worthy pictures with their significant others, “okay, now do a kissing one! Awww, so cute!”

Coerced to join the picture bandwagon I decided to ask my friend to take a solo picture of me — might as well send my husband a picture of myself, I thought. As I stepped in front of the camera I decided to embrace the moment and confidently pose in my beautiful rental gown.

After the pictures turned out (surprisingly) well, I realized I had to embrace being stag. There was no other way to get through wedding season but to take advantage of having fun without obsessing over the fact that my partner-in-crime wasn’t here.

What I’m here to tell you is…don’t avoid weddings because your spouse is deployed, gone for training or otherwise can’t come. Make the most of it and get ready to rock these weddings!

As I’m gearing up for my second season of summer weddings, here are my tips for making the most of your stag status.

The Summer Of Going Stag: How MilSpouses Can Survive Wedding Season During Deployments

Wear Something You Feel Confident In. If you’re going to go and you’re going by yourself, you might as well look fabulous. Find a dress or an outfit that you feel really good in, I’m talking through the roof confidence. Even if you find yourself feeling self-conscious or out of place for being there without your significant other you will get a little confidence boost knowing you look damn good!

Be Comfortable With Third-Wheelin’ It. When you’re going stag, it is OK to third-wheel it with other couples you know.

At one of the weddings last summer I pretty much only knew one other person and her boyfriend. I practically clung to them for dear life during the arrival, seating for the ceremony and cocktail hour. I was pretty open about it and even made several jokes about being their third-wheel. Even though it might feel weird, it’s OK!

Make New Table Friends. Table talk. Happens every wedding. Everyone sitting at your table tries to introduce themselves across the ornately planned centerpieces and cutlery. I’m not always excited about these forced meeting situations (#introvert), however table mates can become crucial when you are going to a wedding stag. It’s an easy way to build quick “friends” who you can dance with or take a trip to check out the desserts.

Table friends are crucial to making you feel a little less lonely, especially if you don’t know very many people at a wedding.

Dancing Is A Universal Language. It’s not a wedding without dancing, right? Dancing is a great way to let loose and have fun at a wedding, even when you’re without your sweetheart. Find your friends or those table mates you met earlier and chop it up on the dance floor.

You can always infiltrate the “single girls/guys” dancing groups who are ready to have fun with whomever on the dance floor. Everyone appreciates someone who can dance and smile while doing so!

Use the dreaded slow/romantic songs as an opportunity to refill your drink, use the restroom, eat dessert or take a load off (especially if you’re wearing heels).

Don’t Be Afraid To Leave Early. If you’re “over” the wedding scene and ready to go back to your hotel room, don’t be afraid to leave early. It’s OK to enjoy the ceremony and enough of the reception to the point where you feel you can respectfully leave.

Sometimes weddings are full of tight-knit friend groups and family members who have tons of history together.

Or sometimes people have had one too many drinks and you’re over it.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with calling it an early night. It’s better to leave before you get cranky, tired, sa, or feeling so awkward you can’t stand it. Showing up for a wedding is a sign of love, leaving when you’re ready is an act of self-love.

As military spouses we handle so many things (all the things) on our own. Don’t let the wedding invites trip you up. Be your own amazing date…and look fabulous while doing it.

Sidra Montgomery is a social science researcher studying issues of identity in the military and veteran community. She recently earned her Ph.D. in Sociology at the University of Maryland – College Park. She is a Navy Spouse and served on the 2015-2017 advisory board of the Military Family Advisory Network (MFAN). Sidra loves to be active and spend time outdoors with her playful Rhodesian Ridgeback dog and her husband. You can learn more about on her website (https://sidramontgomery.weebly.com/) and her blog, Veteran Scholars (https://veteranscholars.com/).

I have a fantasy that I’m afraid to act out on but I know there are others like me who dream about it too.

The “Fifty Shades of Grey” books have nothing on our longing. My fantasy doesn’t even take advanced planning. The benefits highly outweigh the costs involved. Just like Ana in those “Fifty Shades” books, the yearning is so strong that there are days when I can think of nothing else.

It is an all-consuming fire that makes going about my day a challenge.

Or maybe it’s just being brave enough to go through with my fantasy.

My dream started soon after my wedding. We were married in our early 20s, children quickly followed, and we were far away from family. Those factors combined to feed my pipe dream. I call it a pipe dream because I don’t know that it will ever come true.

My husband doesn’t understand it. He can’t comprehend why I would want to act on it and I don’t know why he can’t see why going through with it is so important to my mental health.

Doesn’t he want to make me happy? “Happy wife, happy life” after all. We have had countless arguments and discussions over my wish. And still after many years; I’m unfulfilled in my need.

My craving usually takes root about a month into a deployment or TDY.

It’s a combination of loneliness and stress that triggers it. And even though I know it’s coming, I can’t stop it. The kids are demanding, my work from home job is monotonous and I’m just plain tired.

I am pulled in too many directions at once and I can’t see straight. That’s when I turn inward and that longing takes a hold.

(Warning! The next few paragraphs are graphic.)

My fantasy goes like this.

I hop in the car and drive away, leaving my husband and kids back at the house. I don’t even bother looking in the rear view mirror because if I do, I might not go through with it. Then I drive to the hotel where I made my reservation and check in. Maybe I’d let the valet park my car but that might be taking it too far. The front desk people don’t even flinch when I tell them that I don’t need help with my luggage. I’ve brought so little, you see. “Have an enjoyable stay,” they offer. Don’t worry. I intend to. As I take the elevator up to my room, I’m giddy with anticipation.

When I open the door, I sigh with relief. I really did it.

My fantasy is finally coming true!!!

I am alone. It’s amazing that something so simple can be so satisfying.

There is no one calling “Mommy!” There is no one requiring me to cook a meal. Deadlines are in the past. There is only me with my thoughts and/or a good book.

My spouse doesn’t get it. I would talk about how he was free of the kids while on TDY. While I understood that he missed his children and wanted to be with them, he didn’t understand my desire to be unburdened. I knew he was still working but there is a freedom there. I wanted freedom and I wanted it badly. Working from home gives you no respite from the constant demands of motherhood. I yearned for a break and a single night out utilizing a babysitter wasn’t going to cut it. There needed to be an extended hiatus for it to count as checking off that box.

My spouse would counter my argument with his own –

“You take the kids to our parents’ houses. Doesn’t that count as a break?”

It may seem like it to him but as we all know, when you do that, you still have to be “on.” Even though it’s family, there is not always an easy way to relax.

Not only that but I have to actually get to my parent’s house. That means a plane ride, which incorporates into a car ride TO the airport and then corralling the kids while waiting to board the plane. That in turn translates into keeping the kids occupied on the plane and then finally arriving at our destination.

As someone that always, ALWAYS clears notifications. I didn’t read it just yet. Because I didn’t want to answer it.

I felt paralyzed by the thought of even going out or making plans. Because what was deployment day #235 going to bring?

A check engine light?

A sick kid?

The ice maker breaking?

Lightning striking my house?

All were likely scenarios.

This had been the deployment from hell. It wasn’t our first rodeo, but this deployment, it was a beast. And despite having a great support network, I felt crippled, by a text. From a friend. A fellow milspouse who definitely would understand.

See, that’s the thing. I know that I can handle everything that’s thrown my way. In fact this deployment alone I took care of a mysterious gas tank issue, a nasty sickness that plagued me and my daughter, a dead car battery, a leaky roof, a broken air conditioner (twice), more sickness and a broken microwave. On top of work and maintaining a household.

But despite all of that, I didn’t want to answer my friend’s invitation.

The thing is that deployment is its own beast. No matter what my spouse and I have been through as a couple – multiple field trainings, TDYs, dating long distance – deployment throws punches left and right. And it stops me in my tracks.

Five years ago during deployment I exhausted myself going to grad school, working, volunteering and making friends. It was a roller coaster but looking back, I was not so great at self care.

I overbooked myself to make every day go by quickly. Every single hour was packed and I drove all over Seattle and Tacoma to meet friends, make meetings and make a pivotal career shift.

But guess what?

I still missed him.

It was still a really long 9 months.

One of those friends from last deployment is the one texting me now. We’re lucky to be stationed together again. And she’s been asking for days,

“what day should we hang out?”

I keep stalling. Because just last week my throat hurt. Just last week it was too hot to sit outside for more than a few minutes. Tomorrow I have to go to work and make it looked like I have my shit together.

But I don’t.

I’m barely holding it together.

Because literally everything that could go wrong has gone wrong.

I’m tired of explaining that I’m handling it all alone. Yes, my husband is still deployed. No, I can’t tell you when he’ll be home because of OPSEC. Yes, my daughter misses him.

Don’t mind me, I’m just sitting here worrying about the inevitable reintegration fights and awkward sex and what else could go wrong in the next month that he’s away.

I’m this close to making a voodoo doll named deployment to make it all better.

The thing that gets me as my mind spirals like this is that I’m very independent. Before I met my husband I didn’t dream of getting married a year out of college but instead would be living my best life in NYC working for a national magazine.

But love is a powerful thing and the person that pulled me away from my first dream is around the world, time zones away, and doesn’t really care which microwave I buy for the house.

BUT I WANT HIM HERE TO PICK OUT THAT MICROWAVE WITH ME.

I want him here to experience the toddler tantrums and explain to me whatever is wrong with the car so that I don’t drain our savings on pointless things. (Confession: I know very little about cars, but I am now super knowledgeable about microwaves.)

That’s the thing about deployment, is that while I’m on my own and I’m good at deployments in theory, I want to be with my spouse.

I want to go out to girls’ night and come home to him. I want to meal plan together and fold laundry. I want to be a boring couple. And as abnormal as military life is, I want our normal life back.

My phone buzzes again. “Are we hanging out?” flashes on the screen. Yes iPhone, I know I got a text.

I decide to respond yes. Because I know that I need the night out. Deep down I hope nothing goes wrong tomorrow. Because I’m in the last month. The home stretch. And I need the reprieve.

And an hour out with a friend where I can forget and laugh is just what the doctor ordered.

When my husband deployed for the first time we had only been married for 9 months and had just moved to a new duty station. I barely knew anyone, had started a new job, and was a bit overwhelmed. But I got through that deployment thanks to amazing friends, focusing on my career, and taking it day by day.

Whether you’re facing your first or fifth deployment, here are 31 things in no particular order that you need to survive your next deployment.

31 Must-Have Items to Survive Deployment

An awesome tribe. You probably already have some amazing friends, but during a deployment you will definitely be leaning on them more like when you need someone to talk to at night.

Don’t have your tribe yet? There are some great ways to find like-minded people, like at unit events or Meetup.

Create your own clubs. During my husband’s last deployment my friends and I had Veggie Night. It started when one of our friends admitted that she really didn’t like vegetables that much. But she wanted to try to eat more vegetables and learn to cook them. Veggie Night was born and we met up about once a month for a fantastic dinner party.

Other ideas? Meal swaps, running club and Pinterest crafting groups.

Care package supplies. You’ll be sending a lot of care packages, so befriend your local post office staff and stock up on those flat-rate boxes and customs form.

Wine. For those really, really long days.

Coffee. For those mornings when you don’t want to get out of bed.

Reliable babysitter and/or enroll in CYSS. You will definitely need to take a break at some point. Be sure you have someone you can rely on so that you can have a night for yourself. During deployments you get a certain number of free hours – enroll your children in the on-post daycare center so you can get your free hours and your well-deserved break.

Power of Attorney. You will likely need multiple powers of attorney. These allow you to do everything from get a new military ID card to dealing with financial issues during deployment on behalf of your service member.

Budget/money plan. Depending on your spouse’s deployment location, you are likely looking at a slightly larger paycheck while they are away. While that may sound like a great chance to go shopping, deployment is a great opportunity to pay down debt or increase your savings. So before your spouse deploys, look at what the new paycheck will be and make a plan to be financially secure.

Have activities or events to look forward to over the course of the deployment. These can be vacations, family or friends visiting, or as simple as a happy hour with friends to celebrate the halfway point of deployment.

Have a personal mission. This is a goal you want to focus on during the deployment. It could be running your business, training for a marathon or learning to cook Italian cuisine. Figure out what you want to do and do it!

Communication expectations. Talk to your spouse about what communication options they may have during their deployment.

On my husband’s last deployment he had a crazy schedule and no wifi on his base so I knew we were limited in when we could talk. That helped me know that I may not hear from him if he had a long day and there was a long line at the MWR center.

Stationery. Get some fun cards or personalized paper to write some old-fashioned love letters to your love.

Bubble bath. Sometimes you need to soak in some bubbles at the end of the day.

Wills. This is a serious one. While you don’t expect anything to go wrong, be sure to have updated wills just in case.

Life insurance. Again, this is one of those just in case moments but be sure that both you and your spouse are covered.

Keep a journal. Going through a deployment is not easy but you’ll be amazed by how much you will learn and do over those long months. Start a journal to track your feelings and in a few years reread it to see how amazing you are.

Red Cross number. In case of a family emergency or something exciting (like you giving birth), have the number for Red Cross so you can get a message to your spouse ASAP. If it’s something that requires your spouse to come home, a Red Cross message is necessary to start that process.

Post-deployment reintegration expectations/plan. Reintegration isn’t all unicorns and rainbows. Know that it is hard and make plans with your spouse to spend some time together to reconnect – whether one night or a whole vacation. But know that sweet, sweet love may not be perfect the first (or second) time.

OPSEC do’s and don’ts. Yes you will want to make sure family and friends know that your loved one is gone and how to send them care packages, but know what you can and can’t share to make sure they’re safe while deployed.

Paper plates. Because we guarantee that you’ll have many nights when nobody has time to do dishes.

Yoga (or other fitness) class. Those endorphins will make you feel awesome or at the very least relaxed.

Deployment countdown. Whether it’s a jar of Hershey Kisses or a paper chain, a countdown will help you look forward to the end of deployment and see the progress you’ve made.

Activities for your kids. Having a parent gone is tough on a kid – find fun activities to help keep them focused on the positive. Operation Purple offers free summer camps to military kids and your local base likely offers classes and camps.

Homecoming sign. What better way to finish up your countdown by making a fun sign or order a sign in advance from BuildASign for free!

Explore your duty station. Make sure to get to know and explore your duty station.You may find a new favorite restaurant or coffee shop. By the time your service member gets home you’ll be a bonafide local!

Moving supplies (if you plan to go home). Moving back to your hometown during deployment? The military won’t move you (it’s not a PCS) so stock up on boxes, tape and whatever else you need to pack everything up and put in storage or drive home.

Rules you are OK with breaking. Maybe you always eat at the dinner table as a family, but during deployment you really need some nights of dinners in front of the TV. It’s totally OK! Be sure your kids know that this isn’t going to be an all-the-time thing, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.

Ways to stay focused. It’s hard to keep your mind on work or school or life when you’re missing your spouse. It’s totally normal, but when you really need to focus, check out our guide so you can meet your personal or professional goals during deployment.

Take it day by day. Everyday during deployment will be different. Some may be more difficult than others, if you need some me time – take it. If you have a great day – that’s fantastic! Do what you need to do for you to get through the time apart.

What is in your deployment toolkit? Share your must-have items in the comments section.

I have lived my life inside the bubble of the military community. Going from Air Force brat to Army wife was a relatively smooth transition when it came to the alphabet soup, but there were a lot of hard-core lessons that came with being a military spouse.

Sometimes living inside that bubble we forget that other people don’t live life like us, and sometimes those unspoken truths that seem so normal to us are never seen by our friends and family.

To pop the bubble, so to speak – here are 7 unspoken truths about being a military spouse.

7 Unspoken Truths About Being A Military Spouse

We Speak The Jargon

Just like our spouses who are in the military, we pick up a lot of jargon and we tend to speak in this alphabet soup language.

So much so that we forget other people don’t understand it. They don’t know what we mean when we say we can schedule an event next Friday because it’s an SDO, or when we say our spouse is TDY. So we find ourselves explaining what we mean a lot!

We Say the Words “I Don’t Know” A Lot

People think that because we are the spouse we should know everything, but this is not the case. I have no idea where he is, when he is coming home or when he is leaving again. Our lives can be very confusing because of this, but we just roll with it and we are ready to go at a moment’s notice.

People Say Dumb Stuff To Us, A LOT

Whether they are asking if our spouse has ever killed anyone or if this is their last deployment, we experience varying degrees of dumb questions and comments on a weekly basis. Some are really offensive and hurtful. Some make us cry, but after a while we become thick-skinned and we just roll our eyes a lot.

Death Is A Common Conversation In Our Marriages

Before every deployment we sit down and discuss funeral preferences and wills. Our spouses show us videos of drone strikes and artillery in the field and we grow used to it. We get phone calls several times a year about community members who have died.

Our Gold Star families are held in the highest respect, for they have lost their loved one in service to the military.

Several times each deployment, someone has called me to ask if the helicopter that went down was my husband’s, and I have had to wait as patiently as possible by the phone – and front door – to find out. We talk about these things every day, and we find ourselves talking about it like we were discussing a trip to the grocery store. This freaks some people out, but we have to find a certain comfort level with it, so we don’t fall apart.

We Sometimes Feel Lonely

This life can be incredibly lonely. We feel lonely when our friends who have no affiliation with the military don’t understand our lives. We feel lonely when we move 1,600 miles from home.

We find ourselves feeling very very lonely when our best friend – our spouse – is gone and we cannot communicate with them very well for months at a time.

The best way people can help with this is to communicate with us and visit us often, offer help (and follow through!), and just listen, even if they don’t understand.

Some People Attack Us

There is this really offensive term, dependapotomus, that gets thrown around in the military community a lot these days. It is supposed to describe military spouses who are lazy and mooching off their service member.

Instead it is often used to attack any military spouse that speaks up for themselves, confesses weakness, carries a Coach bag, stays at home with the kids, has an “Army Wife” sticker or a series of other totally innocent things that a certain group of people have deemed worthy of judgement.

Sometimes we try to avoid doing these things, but mostly we keep our chins held high and ignore the haters, because we know they are just immature bullies.

They are the minority in the military community. At the end of the day, most members of our community are very tight-knit. We will go to bat for each other. We will provide a shoulder or a guest bed to each other at a moment’s notice.

We are, after all, the only ones that understand each other, and we have to band together.

Some People Thank Us

It equally warms my heart and confuses me when people thank me for my service. I will always answer, “Oh, I haven’t done anything,” with a rueful shake of my head and smile, “But thank you for the sentiment.”

I’m not in the military. I just married the love of my life and he happened to be in the military.

The fact that someone recognizes that I have made sacrifices for this military life though, I appreciate immensely.

Sometimes our lives are a little strange. It may seem like we speak a different language, but in general we are just trying to live normal lives with spouses that have abnormal jobs.

Many of us are either military brats, dual-service couples, or we’ve been married to service members for such a long time that it is hard to remember that some people might not see us as “normal.”

What are some other unspoken truths for military spouses? Share your thoughts in the comments section.

Ever since I was a small child, I have thrived on having time to myself. I would always rather read a book by myself than go to a party with all my friends. This is a trait that I’ve had to learn to embrace throughout the years and that I’ve also had to learn to overcome in order to create lasting friendships.

The thing is, alone time is great when you set aside that time on your own. It’s not so great when it is thrust upon you because of something outside of your control.

I remember being a kid, and getting so frustrated with my mom when she would get on my case about cleaning my room. Every chore to clean up my space felt like it took an hour and I grumbled and whined through the whole ordeal. However, when I would get it in my mind that I wanted a clean and organized room, everything seemed like so much fun. I’d be whistling around my room, pulling things out of drawers to clean and regroup. I’d actually spend hours cleaning my room to make sure everything was perfect.

Alone time is exactly like cleaning your room as a kid.

When you choose it for yourself, it feels like a dream. You just can’t get enough of it.

But when the alone time is forced because of a deployment, duty station change or other military decided circumstance, it doesn’t feel as fun or empowering.

I have had to learn how to love my alone time, even when I haven’t chosen it for myself. There are some very specific things that I do to ease myself into forced alone time. Here are 4 things to help you learn to enjoy and treasure the time you have alone.

Take Deep Breaths

When my wife went away for her first underway (mini-deployment), I got a little panicked. It wasn’t in my control anymore! What about when I want her back and can’t have her? What if I encounter a crisis while she’s away and I can’t get a hold of her? But when I started to calm down and just relax about the situation, I felt like I could enjoy myself so much more.

Take Back Control

Half of the reason why extended separations are so hard is because of the lack of control we feel when they begin. WE didn’t decide to cook dinner, alone. WE didn’t decide to tuck our kids into bed at night, alone. WE didn’t decide to have to take care of ourselves when we are sick, alone. We. Didn’t. Decide.

But the most important part of enjoying your alone time is claiming what you DO decide. We DO decide to start taking that pottery class we always wanted to but never had the time for. We DO decide to make friends who can help us out when we’re in a crisis. We DO decide to soak in the bathtub at night when everyone is asleep, in order to get our mind back in the right place. This, we DO decide.

Involve Yourself

It is so important to find a good support network for when you are forced into alone time. It is extremely difficult to tread on through a deployment or period of separation without people who can relate to what you are going through. Positive support and friendships can be the factor that turns your deployment that is dragging on into a chore that you can whistle through.

Don’t Focus on the End Date

There is nothing more sabotaging to enjoyable alone time than constantly checking the time to see when it’s over. Imagine laying down for an hour long massage, only to constantly interrupt the masseuse to go check your phone and see how much longer you have. Not very relaxing or enjoyable, is it? Extended periods of being away from your spouse can be very similar. If you are constantly counting down the days, hours and minutes until your spouse gets home, time will drag on. You have then put yourself in a losing situation. There is no possible way to enjoy your time alone if you are only focused on when it is going to be over. Live in the present, not the future.

Being alone is still something that can be really difficult for me. And I’m a person who generally enjoys being alone. I see other military spouses crumble under the pressure of their family being separated for a period of time. I see others who appear fine until you dig deeper and see the pain that they carry. There are yet others who actually are OK and try to love and enjoy the time that they have for themselves.

Some days, I am the strong woman that I want to be. I trod through an underway easily and love my time that I have to watch my guilty pleasure shows without getting made fun of by my wife.

Other days, I really struggle and cry a lot from loneliness and misery. I still am working on reaching a stable zen to combat being away from my wife and am hoping I can get a better grasp of what my attitude needs to be like for the upcoming deployment my wife will be going on. If you have any tips for me, and others like me, please share your tips in the comments section below.

What do you think? How can military spouses learn to love their alone time?